Critical Linking: July 21st, 2014

Looking for the next great book to sink your teeth into? Look no further. As summer rolls on, you may find yourself with free time to catch up on reading. We have good news for you virtual bookworms — you can get in a good read without spending a dime.

Novelist J K Rowling has confirmed she plans “not seven, more” Robert Galbraith novels. Speaking at the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate on Friday night (18th July), in conversation with Val McDermid, the author drew applause from the audience when she confirmed there was an “open-ended” series planned. “I love writing these books. One of the things I love about this genre is that – unlike Harry [the Harry Potter series] where there is an overarching story, here you are talking about discrete stories. So as long as your detective lives you can give him cases.”

That’s why I don’t think the big revolution for writers and other content producers will come from Amazon, but rather from startups like Patreon, which allow producers to build audiences directly and develop their own direct subscription model with their most fervent fans. That would be a surprise dénouement in this final episode of the Content Wars, but a welcome one for creators around the world.

Direct sales to readers is the Holy Grail of publishing disruption: powerful, possibly transformative, and probably a myth.

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UNLV undergraduate engineering students Jack Cheney, Nicole Ramos and Vachara Maneeraj created a solar-powered book drop that roasts bed bugs to death. The project was part of UNLV’s engineering senior design competition in May. All engineering students must collaborate for a year to produce a product using their engineering skills.